Alright, I finally got around to disposing of the drives I had.
A friend and I went out to a nice, safe piece of private property today with a big pile of hard drives.
Handgun wise, between the two of us, we had the following(sometime multiple examples of a given caliber):
32-20
9mm
38 Special
357 Magnum
41 Magnum
44 Magnum
45 Colt
45 ACP
45 Winchester Magnum
And, the following rifles
M1 Garand(30-06)
Kar98 Mauser(8mm Mauser)
Mosin Nagant(7.62x54R)
Oh, and I had my 357 Magnum lever action.
All handguns-save for 9mm-were shooting handloads of varying power levels, from light target to absolute book maximums. The rifles(except for the 357) were shooting military surplus ammunition-USGI M2 Ball for the Garand, German-made 8mm for the Mauser, and Russian-made 7.62x54R for the Mosin.
On the handgun side, 9mm and 38 special were the wimps. I tend to not load 38 special fairly light, and using soft swaged lead bullets I only managed to dent the covers. This was out of a variety of barrel lengths-from 2" to 8." The 9mms were shot out of a Luger and a High Power. 9mm would at least penetrate the cover, but veered off track and shed their jackets once they hit anything substantial.
45 Colt and ACP would penetrate, but mostly just bounced around and dented. I managed to lodge a bullet under the cover of one. My "magnumized" 45 Colt loads(shot out of a Ruger Blackhawk-26gr Win 296 powder under a 250gr bullet) did poke nice holes. The 45 Win Mag belongs to my friend, and is a recent purchase-the sights were so off that we weren't able to get a hit on anything
44 Magnum did do nicely, even at a less than max load(13.5gr Blue Dot, 240gr jacketed bullet). 18gr 2400 under a 210gr in 41 Magnum did nicely also.
32-20 has an old reputation up here in the hills of Kentucky of being a good penetrator. I haven't chronographed my own handload, but they were at least supersonic today(With todays local temperature the speed of sound is probably about 1090fps). These actually were able to get through about 2 platters, but not more than that. I just got a call this morning from one of the gun shops I deal with that a 327 Magnum I ordered over the summer had arrived. I won't be able to pick it up until next week, but a 32 caliber bullet moving at 1500fps would likely do a lot better.
357 magnum was the clear winner among the handguns today, as long as it was shot out of a 4" or longer barrel. The 140gr loads I showed earlier in this thread worked well. Even better, however, was "Elmer's load." Elmer Keith was a Montana cowboy who was one of the folks responsible for developing the 357, 44, and 41 magnum cartridge. "Elmer's Load" is a 170gr semiwadcutter type bullet(of his own design) over 13.5gr of 2400 Powder(Elmer used 14gr, but I value my guns too much to do that). These punched nice holes through the platters. They did even better out of the rifle.
Rifle wise, all were pretty much equal, as would be expected on paper. The German and Russian ammo were both steel cored and poked nice round holes. The lead-cored M2 Ball presumably deformed at least a little bit and made larger exit holes.
A friend and I went out to a nice, safe piece of private property today with a big pile of hard drives.
Handgun wise, between the two of us, we had the following(sometime multiple examples of a given caliber):
32-20
9mm
38 Special
357 Magnum
41 Magnum
44 Magnum
45 Colt
45 ACP
45 Winchester Magnum
And, the following rifles
M1 Garand(30-06)
Kar98 Mauser(8mm Mauser)
Mosin Nagant(7.62x54R)
Oh, and I had my 357 Magnum lever action.
All handguns-save for 9mm-were shooting handloads of varying power levels, from light target to absolute book maximums. The rifles(except for the 357) were shooting military surplus ammunition-USGI M2 Ball for the Garand, German-made 8mm for the Mauser, and Russian-made 7.62x54R for the Mosin.
On the handgun side, 9mm and 38 special were the wimps. I tend to not load 38 special fairly light, and using soft swaged lead bullets I only managed to dent the covers. This was out of a variety of barrel lengths-from 2" to 8." The 9mms were shot out of a Luger and a High Power. 9mm would at least penetrate the cover, but veered off track and shed their jackets once they hit anything substantial.
45 Colt and ACP would penetrate, but mostly just bounced around and dented. I managed to lodge a bullet under the cover of one. My "magnumized" 45 Colt loads(shot out of a Ruger Blackhawk-26gr Win 296 powder under a 250gr bullet) did poke nice holes. The 45 Win Mag belongs to my friend, and is a recent purchase-the sights were so off that we weren't able to get a hit on anything
44 Magnum did do nicely, even at a less than max load(13.5gr Blue Dot, 240gr jacketed bullet). 18gr 2400 under a 210gr in 41 Magnum did nicely also.
32-20 has an old reputation up here in the hills of Kentucky of being a good penetrator. I haven't chronographed my own handload, but they were at least supersonic today(With todays local temperature the speed of sound is probably about 1090fps). These actually were able to get through about 2 platters, but not more than that. I just got a call this morning from one of the gun shops I deal with that a 327 Magnum I ordered over the summer had arrived. I won't be able to pick it up until next week, but a 32 caliber bullet moving at 1500fps would likely do a lot better.
357 magnum was the clear winner among the handguns today, as long as it was shot out of a 4" or longer barrel. The 140gr loads I showed earlier in this thread worked well. Even better, however, was "Elmer's load." Elmer Keith was a Montana cowboy who was one of the folks responsible for developing the 357, 44, and 41 magnum cartridge. "Elmer's Load" is a 170gr semiwadcutter type bullet(of his own design) over 13.5gr of 2400 Powder(Elmer used 14gr, but I value my guns too much to do that). These punched nice holes through the platters. They did even better out of the rifle.
Rifle wise, all were pretty much equal, as would be expected on paper. The German and Russian ammo were both steel cored and poked nice round holes. The lead-cored M2 Ball presumably deformed at least a little bit and made larger exit holes.
